We’re pleased to announce that the much anticipated Android release of new Cook&Count is now available!

Offering gluten and dairy filters for those with special dietary requirements, along with lots more tried and tested recipes, Cook&Count provides nutritional information for all your home cooked favourites.

Here are some of our favourite new recipes…

Baked herby falafels from the Fakeaways cookbook

Falafel are a great fast food. They are a traditional Middle Eastern food, very nutritious and versatile. Serve with a flatbread, salad and hummus. They’re also great for snacking or served as part of a mezze tray.

Cheesy potato pancakes with mizeria from the Cheap & Easy cookbook

Potato pancakes are a popular Eastern European staple. This is a Polish recipe, which we recommend you serve with mizeria, a yoghurt and cucumber salad. This makes a perfectly balanced meal.

Gluten free orange and almond cake from the Gluten Free cookbook

A classic recipe, first published in A Book of Middle Eastern Food in 1968. It remains popular nearly 50 years later. Easy to make, low in fat and gluten free. This works well as a dessert or cake.

Completely free to download, you can give Cook&Count a try by adding three of your best recipes and following many of our own. Then for just 79p per month (£7.99 per year) you can access the full range of recipes and save as many of your own as you’d like to.

Download the brand new Android version here, or the iPhone/iPad version here, and get cooking!

Our founder and CEO Deborah and her new husband Dieter decided to do something different for their honeymoon in Cuba, but as it was hurricane season things didn’t get off to the best of starts!

An unusual wedding gift

Dieter and I got married on 1 October 2016. Instead of the traditional wedding gift list, we decided to choose a challenge and ask for charity donations to JDRF. This is a cause close to our hearts because we understand how type 1 diabetes can affect peoples’ lives. Our son Solly got type 1 diabetes suddenly when he was 10. It has drastically changed his life, and ours too.

We want to do what we can to support the JDRF in their mission to find the cure for type 1. We decided to help by doing what we do best – cycling long distances and exploring! Yes, it was our honeymoon. And no, we weren’t going to do much lazing around on beaches. We had chosen to spend our honeymoon in the saddle, doing a tandem bicycle tour of southern Cuba.

Hurricane Matthew hits Cuba

The lead up to our challenge was … challenging. It was hurricane season in the Caribbean and Florida. Just as we were leaving the UK we heard that one of the biggest hurricanes for decades was heading towards Cuba and then on to Florida. So instead of spending the first couple of days relaxing on Caribbean beaches before our ride, we had a three day delay boarded up in Miami waiting for Hurricane Matthew to wreak havoc.

Eventually we managed to get to Cuba to start our cycle tour. The first morning we got straight on the bike. Riding long distances in 35C heat was not easy, particularly due to the lack of food, water and shade. The roads were in a very poor state and in many areas they had collapsed into the sea. Over long distances we came across only the occasional ‘cafeteria’ but all that was on the menu was rum, cigarettes and sometimes beer.

By the third day of riding we started to enter in the area that had been hit by Hurricane Matthew. While holed up in Miami we had been watching the news and social media to get as much information as possible about how Cuba had been affected and whether it would be safe to go there. It was shocking and saddening to cycle through an area of nearly 200km in which most of the houses had lost their roof and palm trees were strewn across the landscape like boxes of matches. Electricity was down and water and food was scarce. After five days we emerged from the destruction zone, dirty, tired and hungry. And we managed to complete the final few days cycling in relative normality.

The aftermath

Despite recent stories of Cuba changing so much, becoming commercialised and being overtaken by tourists, we saw no other tourists or travellers for days. In many places the horse and cart was still the most common vehicle. Where we did see cars, many were still the beautiful, colourful 1950s American cars that people imagine when they think of Cuba.

We rode 712km over nine days. It was much tougher than we imagined and we definitely feel like we earned the brilliantly generous donations to JDRF of over £2,000 that we’ve received. We are really grateful for all the support friends and family gave for this very important cause.

Why not plan a big fundraising adventure yourself? We highly recommend it! Few people had come across the idea of doing charity donations instead of a wedding list. But many people have so much ‘stuff’ these days. So instead of receiving yet more plates, towels and cutlery, why not put money to good use by supporting research to help find a cure for type 1 diabetes. We challenge you to a challenge!

It was great to meet a wide range of healthcare professionals all interested in diabetes care. And we heard talks and discussions on some controversial topics in the diabetes health world. We met current users and fans of the app, those interested to learn more, and other young businesses working to improve healthcare in the diabetes space.

Digital health tech for diabetes

Diabetes specialist consultant Partha Kar talked about the need for digital health tech in supporting those with diabetes. He emphasised the impossibility of random clinical trials in this area, with technology moving so fast that new digital solutions are obsolete by the time full scale NHS trials are complete. Partha believes anything that’s useful to patients is worth recommending – something we completely agree with.

Low carb vs low fat

There was a lot of promotion of low carb diets for those with diabetes. This included a particularly lively panel discussion made up of GP Ian Lake (who uses a very low carb diet as part of his own type 1 diabetes management), Trudi Deakin (X-PERT Health) and Arjun Panesar (Co-founder of Diabetes.co.uk). All of the panel members were fighting in the high fat, low carb corner.

Here at Health Apps we’ve always promoted a balanced diet, including lots of vegetables – particularly leafy green ones – and reducing sugar intake. While we can see the benefits of a low carb eating plan for many people, it’s not something we necessarily promote ourselves. We want to wait until there’s more long-term evidence into its efficacy. And as Trudi says, everyone is different, so get some tailored advice from a medical professional.

Take home messages for Cook&Count2

We discovered that future versions of Cook&Count could be better adapted for different cultural groups (the UK government database is missing a few popular Asian and African ingredients!), discussed specialist and guest cookbook opportunities, and explored further how Cook&Count could be linked with other health and fitness tracking apps.

All in all we received lots of positive feedback and are looking forward to our next opportunity to share Cook&Count2! Click here to head to the App Store to take a look for yourself.